Monday, October 28, 2024

America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow

  Earth from Space with Stars


Photo courtesy of DonkeyHotey Flickr Page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/6143809369



The Earth does not belong to us: we belong to the Earth. There is no death, only a change of worlds. Humankind has not woven the web of life.

~ Chief Seattle


This was a blog entry which I started to write about - and meant to publish - months and months ago. Like around the time of my visit to Los Angeles earlier this year. Yet I never quite finished it to my liking. But since my trip to South Africa (which I will get around to a bit later in this blog entry), as well as the current drought here in the greater New York/New Jersey metropolitan area (which I believe is starting to rank among the record droughts ever recorded in this region), it felt urgent again to address this. So I went ahead and tried to conclude this blog entry, at least enough to write something intelligible, and to include a link to an important article that first got me on this topic well before the current drought here started and got me thinking about it all over again (as well as the visit to South Africa, and particularly to Cape Town). So here is the blog entry which, admittedly, should have been published long ago:


The United States is a wasteful country, and pretty much always has been. Ever since the modern United States as we know it was born, blazing the path westward to fulfill the "Manifest Destiny" at the expense of the Native Americans already living here - and they recognized and tried warning us about the wasteful and hateful and self-destructive ways of our modern culture - we have made wastefulness a way of life. It was plain for them to see in numerous ways. One of the most shameful was by how members of the white "civilizing" society would shoot buffalo from the trains heading westward, just for the fun of it. That was considered a real sport, I guess. Of course, the North American buffalo very nearly went extinct because of this crass indifference to the abundance of the natural resources of the land, testing it's very abundance to the limit. But it did help to kill off the food supply for Native Americans in the interior, and thus allowed us to get that much closer to our modern society's vision of fulfilling it's "Manifest Destiny." So it was tolerated at the time, and since largely stricken from much of the official history of the country, since we kind of knew that it would not paint our modern "civilizing" society in a very favorable light.

Now, I'm not going to say that "nothing had changed" since, because that would be a gross exaggeration, and would unfairly generalize all Americans as wasteful. Personally, I have met many thoughtful Americans who actively try to reduce their own " carbon footprints" in this world, and who keep abreast of these issues more than most people. More than I do, in some cases. Also, it would simply be untrue to suggest that nothing has changed, because they obviously have. Despite continually electing climate change denying officials to high offices, statistics show that in fact, most Americans (by a large majority, actually) do accept the reality that climate change is real. That alone is probably the greatest change that I have seen, because the whole idea of global warming/climate change was once largely deemed as laughable by a majority of Americans, and not all that long ago, really.

Still, I think it is undeniable that too much of this very wastefulness has been allowed not only to exist, but to thrive. I see a reflection of it every time that solid, yet inconvenient, scientific truths are shunned, largely for the sake of an economy relying on continuing to ruthlessly exploit the natural resources of this planet. We continue to do this - and historically nowhere nearly as much as here in the United States -  even while we recognize the undeniably limited quantity of those once seemingly abundant natural resources. When people deny the reality of climate change while championing the pseudoscience of self-serving corporations intent on ignoring the real science in order to keep obtaining temporary profits at the expense of the long-term health of the planet, we can clearly catch a glimpse of this self-destructive tendency that Native Americans tried to warn us about. Whenever we see litter scattered across roads often driven by completely unnecessarily gas-guzzling, oversized and inefficient vehicles, we catch a glimpse of it. When we see whole mountaintops being blasted out of existence in states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, we catch a glimpse of it. When we see people cheering Trump when he declares that he'll be a dictator in order to see more offshore drilling, we catch a glimpse of it. 

Of course, some people would surely assume that I am being preachy here. Maybe I should get off my high horse, they might say. Indeed, maybe I should. After all, as a member of this society, I engage in many of the very same destructive practices that we have grown so used to, to the point where we now take it for granted. Many of us engage in these practices so freely that we never bother to stop and think about the possible - or even probable - consequences of these actions, when they are practiced so mindlessly by millions.

All I am trying to do here is at least get the conversation going. Because at some point, we need to have a conversation about this. We are reaching crisis levels, and it seems clear to me that with more of the world engaging in these same, or at least very similar, practices, and with the world population continuing to skyrocket, this whole thing feels increasingly unsustainable. 

One of the most glaring examples of this is with water. For a long time now, we have been warned that water would be the "new oil" of the 21st century. What that means is that water would become the new precious natural resource which would likely trigger conflicts and even possibly (perhaps likely) major wars. When you look at the situation brewing between Ethiopia and Egypt currently, which has everything to do with access to water, this no longer feels like the stuff of distant prophecy, or science fiction. When you remember that Cape Town, South Africa, narrowly averted a crisis unlike anything that our modern global society has ever seen when it was about to become the first major world city run out of fresh water (despite being surrounded by ocean water), it really also offered a glimpse of this impending and inevitable crisis.

Yet even with all of these, we Americans collectively take the prize for being particularly wasteful. Take, for example, the vast amounts of food which we regularly throw away. From restaurants to supermarkets to private residences, statistics show how staggering the amount of food which we often allow to go to waste is. Meanwhile, there are millions of people - including children - who go hungry right in this country. Some of the most wasteful people are the same who oppose things like free school lunches for poor children in our schools. 

But I digress...

One area in which we are particularly wasteful - to the point where we are actually doing considerable damage to our natural environment - is with water, and particularly given the water crisis out West. Most of us know that the West is largely desert. This may be hidden by the fact that we often see lush green lawns and plenty of trees and shiny, clean cars, all of which are clearly visible in major cities in the western part of the United States. Indeed, if you never left cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco or Denver, you might never know that not very far away is the desert, and that these (and many other) cities actually do not have an abundant supply of water.

In fact, there are precious few water resources, and many of those water resources are being wasted. That is true of underground water in Arizona as it is with numerous other western states. Comedian Bill Maher points out that growing almonds in California is an incredibly wasteful use of limited water supplies. Yet that is not the only problem. Western cities have long been among the fastest growing urban areas in the country - possibly the world - for decades now. Los Angeles and San Francisco really filled out a long time ago and have held huge populations for a long time. But other cities have grown at an incredibly fast rate, including Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, and other western cities. And much like the rest of the country, wasteful practices were simply carried over by those moving there. Lawns were abundantly watered, cars were washed, golf courses required particularly huge amounts of water. None of those were necessary and, in fact, they were wasteful and not good for the environment. Still, they persist and contribute strongly to the growing water crisis in the western United States. 

This is a serious problem. It is something which I have known about for a long time, but which it feels has grown only more serious over time. The evidence keeps mounting that this issue will very likely come back to bite us. Recently, I came back from Cape Town, South Africa, which itself faced a very serious - existential, even - water crisis that threatened the future of that city. And there were signs that the residents there were very aware of this issue, as they were trying to take serious measures to reduce water usage. It feels to me that they were trying to address a crisis which is very real to them, and I had to admire that, as well as to wonder why it seemed that there was largely an absence of that same kind of awareness here in the United States. That is especially true for the western parts of the country, where the water crisis is (or should be) well known about these days.




Below are some of the notes which I took while reading this article. These are the things which really stood out and, frankly, alarmed me. Again, this trend of being too wasteful and not mindful of the problem is relevant throughout the nation, but is particularly problematic out West for obvious reasons, given the limited supply of water out there. 

Usually, I would place some of these things in my own blog entry, often as quotes, or to illustrate some specific points being addressed. But there was simply so much there (and I did not include everything that concerned me in the whole article, because then most likely the entire article would probably have been in my notes. So I stopped somewhere and decided simply to add these notes (which again, are taken directly from this article) and urge you to go ahead and take a look at this article for yourself, and see what you think. Below are the notes, and then the link to this quite informative and revealing article from the New York Times:



Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed.  

A wealth of underground water helped create America, its vast cities and bountiful farmland. Now, Americans are squandering that inheritance.  

United States aquifers, based on 2022 research


Map of the continental United States, marked with state boundaries and overlaid with a depiction of the nation’s main aquifers, which cover most of the country. The Times analyzed water levels reported at tens of thousands of sites, revealing a crisis that threatens American prosperity.  

The 84,544 monitoring wells examined for trends since 1920

United states map overlaid with thousands of dots depicting the location of wells analyzed by The Times. 

Nearly half the sites have declined significantly over the past 40 years as more water has been pumped out than nature can replenish.  

Sites with falling water levels since 1980

U.S. map overlaid with thousands of gray dots depicting the groundwater monitoring wells, along with orange arrows depicting sites in significant decline between 1980 and 2022. The declines are evident nationwide. 

In the past decade, four of every 10 sites hit all-time lows. And last year was the worst yet.  

Record low annual water levels, past decadeMap overlaid with gray dots depicting monitoring wells and thousands of red dots depicting ones that experienced record lows in the past decade. 


Declines are particularly evident in Western states, and in parts of the lower Mississippi and in central Illinois, and along the Atlantic coast. By Mira Rojanasakul, Christopher Flavelle, Blacki Migliozzi and Eli Murray  The first article in a series on the causes and consequences of disappearing water.  Aug. 28, 2023 







America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow by Mira Rojanasakul, Christopher Flavelle, Christopher Flavelle, Blacki Migliozzi and Eli Murray The first article in a series on the causes and consequences of disappearing water.  Aug. 28, 2023:

Rebecca Noble for The New York Times Produced by Claire O'Neill, Matt McCann and Umi Syam. Edited by Jesse Pesta and Douglas Alteen.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html?mc=aud_dev&ad_name=INTER_20_XXXX_XXX_1P_CD_XX_XX_SITEVISITXREM_X_XXXX_COUSA_P_X_X_EN_FBIG_OA_XXXX_00_EN_JP_NFLINKS&adset_name=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Finteractive%2F2023%2F08%2F28%2Fclimate%2Fgroundwater-drying-climate-change.html&campaign_id=120202239292800064&ad-keywords=auddevgate&subid1=TAFI&adset_id=120203135065650064&ad_id=120203135069590064&fbclid=IwAR3BhjtS9LfC-fRBi9Tl8dNgwhRi4X_9LSkOsSYyfz1EV7PvnT3j2SGPYRA

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